2026 Poland Darts Open Betting Preview

James Punt is back in action on the Euro Tour this weekend. It was a difficult night for us in the Premier League last night, hopefully we can bounce back. Check out James’ 2026 Poland Darts Open betting preview below.

2026 Poland Darts Open

This weekend sees the first European Tour event of 2026, and the first Euro Tour event to be held in Poland, the Poland Darts Open.

There are a few players who will be turning up to this, hoping to win, and not have to play another Euro Tour event in 2026, unless it was absolutely necessary to ensure qualifying for the European Championship.

The Premier League players would love to be able to skip the Euro Tour until at least after the end of the PL, just to ease their fixture congestion. Others like Gary Anderson, who hate travelling, aim for a smash and grab in these early Euro Tour events. Others see it as a great way to rack up ranking points, to play in front of big crowds, and want to play in them all.

Slipping Ranking

Anderson didn’t play on the Euro Tour for years, but as his ranking slipped, he needed to play in the European Championship Finals, and thus the Euro Tour events. In the last two seasons, Anderson has won one of the first three Euro Tour events he has played in. Luke Littler won the first Euro Tour event of 2025 and then only played in four of the remaining thirteen events.

Luke Humphries won a Players Championship title on Tuesday and said afterwards that it allows him to skip the rest of the Players Championship events and still make the finals. That would give him an extra two weeks at home with his family. Winning one of the Euro Tour events would have much the same effect.

Those players with a heavy schedule and wanting the luxury of managing it for a lighter workload, will be highly motivated to win one of these Euro Tour events ASAP.

Started Early

I have to start previewing these events before Thursday night’s Premier League matches have been played, which is not ideal, but at least the Players Championship events were finished on Tuesday, so we have nice fresh form for the rest of the field.

There is also the possibility of a player or two being a late withdrawal, but I suspect that the PL players will want to play this event. The trip from Glasgow to Kraków isn’t difficult with direct flights from Glasgow and Edinburgh, taking a little over 2 hours, and even Gary Anderson should be able to find his way here, with daily flights from Bristol airport (information supplied by Punt Travel Services). No excuses for players not being able to crack on to Kraków.

MVG 50/50

As of 10.00am on Friday morning, there have not been any withdrawals. However, Michael van Gerwen is said to be a 50/50 chance of playing. He withdrew from last night’s Premier League due to illness and as he doesn’t start play until tomorrow, he is leaving it until today to decide if he is fit enough to play.

If I am correct, the later he leaves that decision, the more likely that he will not be replaced by another player from the reserve list. That in turn would mean that the winner of the Luke Woodhouse vs. Carl Sneyd match would get a bye into the third round.

2026 Poland Darts Open: The Seeds

1 Luke Littler

Winner of ET1 for the last two seasons and he will be very keen to do something similar this weekend. Obvious chance. The opening event in 2024 and 2025 was the Belgian Darts Open, so this is a different event. He loves playing in Belgium, but he might love Poland too, having won the Polish Masters World Series event in 2024.

Littler’s form, by his standards, has been poor in the last couple of weeks. He has not played in any of the Players Championship events and only played four PL matches, of which he has won only one (and he survived a match dart against him in that one).

The Nuke averaged 97.84 in a 1-6 drubbing by Jonny Clayton last night, but he was never as good as a 97 average sounds. Littler was averaging around 90 for most of the match, but what was worse was his doubling. He was just 16% on his checkouts, and he has been struggling on the outer ring in his last six matches.

Littler looked out of sorts last night. The crowd got to him once, but he was already in big trouble by that point. Littler may bounce back this weekend, outside of the PL, but for once, he is not the obvious favourite.

2 Luke Humphries

Has made a final in one of his first two Euro Tour events in the last four seasons, winning two. Humphries won PC 4 on Tuesday in fine style and looks in very good form. Cool Hand has won eight Euro Tour titles, and been runner up in another six, all in the last four seasons, despite missing twelve events. Tour specialist.

Humphries once again fluffed his lines in the PL last night, blowing his chance to beat Gian Van Veen by missing more match darts to reach the final. He will have been livid. Perhaps he can channel that anger into being ruthless on his doubles this weekend. If he can, there is a very good chance that he will win.

3 Gian Van Veen 

Yet to win a Euro Tour title. He has been a runner up twice in the last two seasons and reached three semi-finals in the last four events of 2025. Van Veen has won seven of his last ten matches. He is not playing with anything like the consistency of Humphries, but he ‘beat’ him last night. Humphries lost would be more accurate.

4 Michael van Gerwen 

Winner of thirty eight Euro Tour titles, and outside of the six events played in the Covid years. MVG has won at least one title every year since 2013. He even won one (from seven played) last year in what was a poor season by his standards.

Van Gerwen has started 2026 in much more positive form than he showed in 2025, with a win rate of 81% He has won seven of his last ten matches. His odds are getting more realistic these days and can be considered more often as a value bet.

MVG is another former winner of the Polish Darts Masters, but the big questions are, will he turn up, and if he does, will he be fully fit?

5 Jonny Clayton 

Has made the quarter final or semi-final of the first ET event of the season for the last four years. He has won three career Euro Tour titles, twice in Austria, and got his first title outside Austria at last year’s Dutch Darts Championship (where he had been runner up in 2024). Maybe lacking the consistency for a really deep run, and he will likely play Gerwyn Price in round three, and that could be as far as he goes.

The Ferret finally ended his 3 year, ten match losing streak against Price, in last night’s PL, which he went on to win and top the table. Clayton has won seven of his last ten matches and he was very good last night, averaging over the ton across his three matches. He smashed up Price, Littler and Van Veen and it doesn’t get much better than that.

6 Gary Anderson

Likes to get off the a flying start on the Euro Tour, just so he doesn’t have to play in many more. That is the kind of thing that drives him these days. Doing enough to get a decent seeding at Ally Pally, and that will do.

Oddly enough, Anderson travelled to Germany for the first two Players Championship events, but declined to go to Wigan on Monday and Tuesday for this week’s events. He has won six of his last ten matches but after the World Championship semi-final, he has been a bit hit and miss.

7 Stephen Bunting

Finally picked up his first Euro Tour titles in 2025, winning in Riesa and Geneva. He was one of the few top players who played in all but two of the Euro Tour events last year, despite playing in the PL and the World Series events.

Bunting was runner up in last year’s Polish Masters and showed some good form to reached the final of PC3 on Monday. His consistency has been a bit iffy so far in 2026, but he is another player who has won seven of his last ten matches.

His PL form is rotten, results wise. He is 0-3 but averaged 97.59, 99.55 and 99.84 in his three matches. Unfortunately for him, his head has gone in the PL. Last night you could see him suddenly thinking, ‘I’m going to lose this one’. He is expecting to lose, and he is doing so.

Outside of the PL he is more positive. He did fold like a cheap suit in the final of PC3 but he has played a lot of good darts. However, he does have howlers (four sub-90s in his last ten), and he lacks the consistency of the likes of Humphries.

8 Ryan Searle

Has never won on the Euro Tour and has only made one final, back in 2021. Traditionally, Searle starts seasons very well, on the floor at least, but having made the semi-final of PC2 in Germany two weeks ago, Searle didn’t play in Wigan this week. Since losing the World Championship semi-final, Searle has played nine and won six, but his consistency is lacking.

9 Josh Rock 

Has won one Euro Tour title, back in 2024, and was a two-time runner up last season. Rock has not gone beyond the second round in the opening Euro Tour event of the season, but he has only played in two, and he should do it this year.

His early season form has been inconsistent. His head will be turned by making his PL debut and he will be trying to get into this new, busier schedule. He has been a player who rarely missed a Euro Tour event, and when he did it was for a good reason, so it will be interesting to see how he approaches it in 2026.

Goading The Crowd

Rock was a bit of a dick in last night’s PL. It was in Glasgow. A City divided into two, sectarian camps. The ones that are Unionists and support Rangers, and Republicans who support Celtic. Glasgow is a city that aspires to be as sectarian as the province of Northern Ireland.

For Rock to turn up and give it the Rangers walk on song, giving the 3-1 hand signal (referring to a recent result) and then try and goad the Celtic half of the crowd, was a mistake. It was also pathetic and something that will follow him around certain venues.

He plays Belfast nest week, and he will have successfully pissed of the Nationalists who will be in the crowd there. From probably having home town hero type status, he will now have some ‘home fans’ giving him abuse. When he plays in Dublin, he will get pelters. He still has a bit of growing up to do. And yes, he lost his match last night.

10 Danny Noppert 

A top player who has never won a Euro Tour event. Noppert has been playing on the Euro Tour since 2018. He has played in 65 Euro Tour events and made three finals. Not a great return for a player who has spent most of the last four years in the top 10. Noppert hasn’t won a title of any sort since PC8 in 2024 and he is rarely my idea of a tournament winner, but he wins plenty of matches.

11 James Wade 

Still in a huff that he didn’t get a pick for the Premier League, and it seems to have given his game a bit of an edge. He went out and straight away won PC1 a couple of weeks ago, and reached the semi-final of PC3 on Monday.

What puts me off his chances is that he hasn’t won on the Euro Tour since 2016 and not made a final since 2018. Despite what he thinks, there are just too many players around who are just that bit better than him.

12 Gerwyn Price 

Won the opening Euro Tour event of the season for three consecutive years from 2020 to 2022. He was a semi-finalist in 2024 and a quarter finalist in 2025, so he can come out of the blocks quickly. He is keen to play in a lot more events this season as he is not defending much money and he his ranking has dropped to 11th in the world rankings.

The Iceman has already played 31 matches in 2026 and won 22. Price was runner up in PC2 last week and was a semi-finalist in PC4 on Tuesday. He is playing great stuff and must be considered as a potential winner, but his conversion rate in terms of playing great darts and winning titles, is not what it used to be.

He was very poor in a 3-6 loss to Jonny Clayton last night, averaging just 91.96, his worst performance for some 29 matches.

13 Chris Dobey 

Won PC3 on Monday, as he did in 2025, and that was another season of disappointment. Is Dobey a floor event specialist? He has now won nine Players Championship titles, one non-ranking TV event and no Euro Tours. Hollywood has the game to win big events, but the bit between his ears holds him back. Dobey has won eight of his last ten matches, but he can’t be backed to win a stage event.

14 Nathan Aspinall 

A player who should give hope to the likes of Noppert and Dobey. The Asp had played in 57 Euro Tour events before he finally won one, the European Darts Trophy early last year. He then went on to win two more and runner up in another. Once he got the monkey off his back, he was flying.

Aspinall has played plenty of darts in 2026. He reached a couple of World Series semi-finals last month, went out in round 2 at the World Masters, runner up in PC1 last week but wasn’t great this week, averaging just 92.20 across five matches. He isn’t in the same league as the likes of Humphries or Price scoring wise, and he is not at his best.

15 Martin Schindler 

Had a grim year in the majors in 2025, but Schindler is a three-time Euro Tour winner and added the Austrian Darts Trophy to his tally last year. He is helped by having so many Euro Tour events played in Germany (even the Swiss Darts Trophy, and Austrian Darts Trophy have lots of German fans). I doubt there will be too many Germans here in Poland this weekend.

16 Ross Smith 

Sixty-nine Euro Tour events without a win, but he has reached three finals in the last two seasons. His problem is that he hasn’t been in good form since winning the final of PC29 last October.

His mum passed away shortly before that and since then, Smudger has played 28 and lost 16. He did hit a couple of ton plus averages in PC 4 on Tuesday, but then had an 89.90 in a 2-6 loss to De Decker. Smith has started to hit more 180s again and he is worth keeping an eye on for match betting purposes.

Best of the Unseeded Players

The rest of the field have the disadvantage of having to play an extra match, an extra chance to lose, but a win can settle the nerves. There are a few in-form players coming in at the first-round stage, and the draw is going to be interesting.

Wessel Nijman 

Winner of PC 2 last week and runner up in PC 4 on Tuesday, Nijman has started 2026 in fine style, but can he do it on a stage? Nijman has won four of the last nine Players Championships and made at least the quarter final of nine of the last ten. His win rate in 2026 is 85%, so he has to be on the short list.

However he has never got beyond the 3rd round in any ranking major. On the Euro Tour, he did make two semi-final appearances and two more quarter-final appearances in 2025, but he is yet to be able to bring his floor game to the stage.

Wessel is still young and not in the same bind as Noppert or Dobey, but he will want to make a better impression on the stage in 2026, and the Euro Tour is a good place to start.

Krzysztof Ratajaski 

The leading Polish player and two-time Euro Tour winner. The Polish Eagle is in decent form, winning seven of his last ten matches and reaching the semi-final of PC2 last week. He is playing well, but lacks the consistency and out and out firepower of the leading players.

Will home advantage be a help, or a hinderance? He has played in the three Polish Masters world series events and won his first match twice but not progressed beyond the quarter finals.

Ritchie Edhouse 

The 2024 European Champion has never won a regular Euro Tour title, nor ever reached a semi-final, but he has enjoyed some great matches on the Euro Tour. He went off the boil after winning his major title, and while I can’t say that The Bank of Edhouse will be open for business this weekend, he has been showing some better, if mixed, form recently.

Earlier this week he had good wins over Luke Humphries, Kevin Doets and Luke Woodhouse and played some nice stuff. He will be feeling a bit more confident and has won seven of his last ten matches. I fancy he will beat Menzies in round one and might cause Wade a problem in round two (Edhouse is 2-0 vs. Wade on the Euro Tour).

Andreas Harrysson 

Dirty Harry reached the 4th round of the World Championship but failed to win enough ranking money to win a tour card. He then just failed to win a card at Q school and he has to ply his trade on the Nordic Baltic Tour and the Challenge tour this season. Harrysson has played in four previous Euro Tour events and always won his first round match.

He beat Gian Van Veen 6-1 in 2024, averaging 107.27, and beat Michael Smith by the same margin last year, averaging 106.00 in a second-round match. It could be that Dirty Harry is a bit of a stage player. He plays William O’Connor in round one, and the Irishman has lost four of his last five matches. He may well keep up that 100% first round record.

Boris Krcmar 

Big Boris is another non-tour card holder who has enjoyed playing in Euro Tour events. He has played in eleven Euro Tour events and won nine first round matches and even reached a quarter final in 2022.

Last year he rocked up in ET 1 and beat Josh Rock in round one and MVG in round two. In ET 2 he beat Dirk van Duijvenbode in round one and then took four legs of Luke Humphries. In ET 7 he beat Gian van Veen in round one, so he relishes a big challenge. He will face Ryan Joyce in round one and he is 2-2 against relentless.

The 2026 Poland Darts Open Draw

First Quarter 

Luke Littler will be fancied to win through this quarter, but not as much as he was 24 hours ago. Are there any possible banana skins for him? Not any that are easy to see. He has excellent records against the likes of Rock, Searle, Ross Smith, and De Decker who have the misfortune to have ended up in the same quarter.

Hopefully he turns up, as I don’t fancy another Friday morning re-write. His PL form has been a concern, but I feel if he can put in a good second round performance, he will kick on and be more like his usual self.

Second Quarter 

Who could have the chance to (probably) play Littler in the semi-final? It is a tough looking quarter but ultimately could be between MVG and Gerwyn Price. The Welshman looks likely to face Joe Cullen in round 2, and that is not a given for Price. Cullen is 11-13 with Price and has won three of their last five, but Price is 3-0 on the Euro Tour. I’ll give it to Price. He should then face Clayton and that is very nearly a gimme for Price.

Of course I wrote that yesterday, and Price went out and played a stinker vs. Clayton last night, losing 3-6. Clayton is a PL specialist. He plays his best stuff there. Will he be able to carry that form though to a ‘regular’ Euro Tour event?

MVG

MVG, if he turns up, may face Woodhouse in round 2 and he is 7-2 vs. Woody, but just 2-2 in their last four, so a tricky opener for Van Gerwen. Heta and Scutt play for the right to play Dobey in round 2. Heta has been good vs. MVG in recent years, winning five of their last seven, but I don’t expect Heta to make it as far as the third round. MVG is 2-0 vs. Scutt, and MVG has won his last six in a row vs. Dobey.

It should be Price vs. MVG and Price is 2-1 in 2026 and has won three of their last four. The Welshman is playing the best darts of anyone in the quarter and he gets my vote. Littler would be the favourite to reach the final, but Price does have the game to beat him. However, he has lost nine of their last ten matches.

Third Quarter 

As a player, you want to be in the bottom half of the draw, and as a punter, you should be looking at the bottom half of the draw to find an each way pick.

The 3rd quarter looks there for the taking for Luke Humphries. He is head and shoulders above the rest. Noppert, Bunting and Schindler are the other seeds and Humphries is 15-8 vs. Bunting, 10-4 vs. Noppert and 9-3 vs. Bunting.

The players likely to come through the first round should hold no great fear, but home favourite, Ratajski would be tricky in round two. Wattimena has dropped his form, Zonneveld is limited, and Humphries managed to see off Krcmar last year.

It is an obvious choice, but Humphries, in good form, good spirits and desperate to win to free up his schedule, will be hard to beat.

Fourth Quarter 

This is the trickiest quarter to call. Gian van Veen is the top seed but while he is playing some great stuff, he may be lacking a bit of consistency. He isn’t a proven winner on the Euro Tour yet and he has his work cut out here. Van Veen may face Andrew Gilding in round two, and Van Veen is 1-1 vs Goldfinger, with two close previous matches. He is scheduled to meet Aspinall in round three and they are 3-3. A bit of a toss-up.

In the bottom half of the quarter, we have Anderson chomping on the bit to get off to a flier, but likely to face in the in-form (on the floor) Nijman. Tricky for Anderson, as Nijman is 3-0 with him. James Wade should be facing Edhouse, and that is not a given for Wade, but he would be favourite, as he should be with Nijman. Wade is 4-0 vs. the young Dutchman.

Wade or Nijman for me, and Wade gets the nod.

The final? Littler vs. Humphries, or maybe Price vs. Humphries.

2026 Poland Darts Open Selections

Before the start of Thursday PL matches, Littler was 3.50, Humphries 7.00, Price 11.00 and Wade 41.00.

Wade’s looks a big price, but remember that his last Euro Tour final was in 2018.

As of 10.00am on Friday, Littler is 3.75, Humphries 7.00, Price 11.00 and Wade still 41.00. Others of interest are Clayton at 34.00 and Nijman at 29.00.

I was happy to have just the one outright selection this time yesterday and I am happy to stick with the same approach.

2026 Poland Darts Open Tip: 1 point e/w Luke Humphries to win @ 7.00 with Ladbrokes

Hopefully I can find a bet for the afternoon session to be posted later, and there will be a preview for this evening’s first round matches posted later this afternoon.

-JamesPunt